The Bonanni U.S. Pat. No. 4,818,058, granted Apr. 4, 1989, incorporated herein by reference, describes an optical fiber connector that can be used for splicing or interconnecting two optical fiber arrays. The connector comprises two opposed chips in which matching V-grooves have been made for supporting individual fibers of an array. The chips are of a monocrystalline material such as silicon in which the V-grooves are made by photolithographic masking and etching with an extremely high degree of precision. After corresponding parallel V-grooves have been made in two chips, the array of optical fibers is sandwiched between them, with each fiber being supported in matching V-grooves of the two chips. The chips are bonded together, and the protruding fiber ends are polished, for example, by abutting them against a polishing wheel. Thereafter, the free ends of two such connectors can be abutted to splice or interconnect the optical fibers of two fiber ribbons, each ribbon defining a fiber array.
Efforts to automate the polishing step have proven difficult because of the need for holding the supported optical fiber exactly perpendicularly with respect to the polishing wheel. The silicon chip support members are rather fragile, so care must be taken not to exert too much force on them. There has therefore developed a need for a method for expediently polishing the ends of optical fiber connectors such that all of the fibers are polished to a common plane which is precisely perpendicular to their central axes. Such methods should require a minimum of operator skill, be consistent with modern robotic apparatus, and not damage the connector devices.